Imaging individual mRNA molecules using multiple singly labeled probes

  • Nat Methods. 2008 Oct;5(10):877-9. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1253.
Arjun Raj  1 ,  Patrick van den Bogaard ,  Scott A Rifkin ,  Alexander van Oudenaarden ,  Sanjay Tyagi
Affiliations
  • 1. Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. [email protected]
PMID: 18806792 DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1253
Abstract

We describe a method for imaging individual mRNA molecules in fixed cells by probing each mRNA species with 48 or more short, singly labeled oligonucleotide probes. This makes each mRNA molecule visible as a computationally identifiable fluorescent spot by fluorescence microscopy. We demonstrate simultaneous detection of three mRNA species in single cells and mRNA detection in yeast, nematodes, fruit fly wing discs, and mammalian cell lines and neurons.